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Climatology And Latitudinal Gradients Of Quiet-Timethermospheric Neutral Winds Over Millstone Hill From Fabry-Perot Interferometermeasurements, J. T. Emmert, Bela G. Fejer, D. P. Sipler

Bela G. Fejer

[1] Midlatitude nighttime thermospheric neutral winds are strongly dependent on season, solar activity, and latitude. We use an extensive database of wind measurements made during 1989–2001 by the Millstone Hill Fabry-Perot interferometer to study the detailed climatology of quiet time neutral winds near an altitude of 250 km. To facilitate the analysis of these data, we develop a local time, day-of-year, solar flux, and latitude-dependent empirical model, with the latitude dependence obtained by considering north looking and south looking observations separately. Our results show that the zonal winds are predominantly eastward after dusk and westward before dawn, with the strongest …